10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Underclassmen listen from
the back of the stadium as U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at
a commencement ceremony at the United States Military Academy at
West Point, New York, May 28, 2014.REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Good morning! Here's what you need to know.

Apple Buys Beats To Save Music. Apple's $3
billion purchase of Beats is official. What really drove the deal
was not simply flagging iTunes sales, but flagging music sales
across the board, BI's Nicholas Carlson says. Apple's Eddy Cue
"said Apple bought Beats because 'music is dying. It hasn't been
growing.' He said combining the two companies will help it grow
again.Cue said that the number of new releases on iTunes this
past year are the smallest the company has ever seen, and that
the growth in the number of songs sold through iTunes has
'leveled off.'

Rising Births, Record-Low Fertility. The
number of U.S. births climbed a fraction — to 3,957,577, up
4,736 from 2010 — for the first YOY increase since 2007,
the CDC
said. But the fertility rate of 62.9 births per 1,000 women
was a new all-time low.

Microsoft-Salesforce.com
Deal. Bloomberg said
the two firms are close to an agreement that would allow
Microsoft's cloud computing service to use Salesforce's customer
management program.

Global Stocks Hit All-Time High. The MSCI
All-Country World index
hit an all-time high Wednesday on talk the ECB would lower
rates. It has gained 1.6% percent since May 8, when the ECB met
last.

Australia Capex Outlook Looks Good.
The Australian strengthened against the dollar, and Aussie
stocks were higher, after a new report shows planned
spending for 2014/15 in non-mining investment would accelerate,
and mining investment fell off less than expected, the FT said. "[Reserve Bank
of Australia] officials consistently have communicated that this
rotation in investment in the wake of the peak in the mining
capex boom was on track," JP Morgan commented. "Now, they have
decent evidence to support their contention, which had for a
while sounded more hopeful than emphatic."

GDP And Jobless Claims. At 8:30 a.m. we get
both jobless, which analysts expect to come in at 317,000 vs
326,000 prior; and the final reading for Q1 GDP, which is
expected to have dipped into negative territory at -0.5%.

Pending Home Sales. At 10 a.m. we get pending
home sales data. Consensus is for a 1% gain, down a bit from the
3.4% rate last month.

Markets. U.S. futures are higher. Stocks in
Asia and Europe were mostly lower.